Hanks Fox Hollow Farm Trip Blog

Hank McCabe       Today we were in Detroit since we finished our work hours. We started our day with some breakfast and then headed to the Detroit Institute of Art. We saw all kinds of cool art there. They had old swords, firearms, and suits of armor. They also had cool indigenous sculptures and masks that were very old. There was a lot of cool stuff, but my favorite was the "Spirit of Detroit" car exhibit. They had a bunch of cars from over the years that were manufactured in Detroit.  5/22/22

 Hank McCabe Senior Project This week, we changed it up a little bit and started with some landscaping. We did a lot of weeding in the flower beds around the property and then put down fresh mulch when we were done with that. We also raked up dead leaves and moved them into the woods and off of the grass.  My favorite part of the workweek was working on the shed in front of the neighbor's house because Morgan helps him out too. The shed started out looking pretty bad, with a bunch of prickly weeds growing around it. We dug all around the shed, making a big circle of dirt. We had to haul heavy wheel barrels full of dirt and weeds into the woods and dump them. After that, we took the truck and filled it up with the rocks we picked from the field at the farm last week. We had to make three or four trips because we needed so many rocks. After we made the rock wall, we took flat sheetrock and made a path for the door of the shed. Lastly, Moran came over with a trailer full of mulch...

 Today was our final day of work on the farm. We were working with Farmer Jim again. We started our day in the chicken coop. We were tasked with collecting eggs. I was hesitant to do this at first because I don't really like chickens, but once we started collecting eggs it was not as bad as I thought it would be. After we collected the eggs, we headed over to the pigpen. The pigpen was pretty dirty and needed some TLC, so we got right to work. We cleaned up the dirty hay from the pen and then spread clean hay around the pen. After that, we cleaned up the horse and cow stalls and put fresh hay down for the animals to enjoy. To finish off the day, we thanked Jim for letting us help him out and for all that he taught us.  5/20/2022 10 Hours

 Today we started our day at the sister property of Fox Hollow Farms. We had a couple of tasks to take care of helping out the land manager there. One thing that we did was evening out the dips on either side of the road because they just put down fresh asphalt. To do this, we filled up a John Deer with dirt and brought it to the strip of asphalt and then we filled in the trenches on either side of the road. We had to take a few trips on the John Deer to get enough dirt to fill in the sides. After that, we split a big woodpile with the wood splitter they had on the property. It was fun operating the wood splitter and splitting up logs of all different shapes and sizes. As we split the wood, we also had to stack it, so we all took turns splitting, stacking, and running the wood splitter. Once we were done with that, we got some food and headed back to the farm to help out farmer Jim with a few things around the farm, and then we were done for the day,  5/19/2022 10 Hours

Hank McCabe       Today, we were back on the farm helping out John, the head land manager. We started the day by stacking wood into trailers. The wood that we stacked is used at Brick's Pizzeria near Connor's house to fuel the pizza oven. After we stacked wood, we were tasked with spreading minerals around the property for the deer. Minerals are like supplements for deer that make their antlers healthier and stronger. This was fun because we got to ride on ATVs so that we could go deeper into the woods. I enjoyed getting to explore more of the property today.  5/18/22 10 Hours

 Today we woke up, had some breakfast, and then went right to work. We had to finish mulching all of the flower beds at the event bar. In the end, we used two more trailer fulls of mulch. After that, we started a new project at a neighbor's house. They had a shed that we build a stone wall around and then filled in the stone wall with mulch. We started by digging around the shed and taking out all of the weeds so that the bed was clean. After that, we took the truck and filled it with stones from the farm to build a wall. We had to take four trips worth of stones to make the wall. Once we finished the wall, Morgan came over with some mulch to fill in the wall. Finally, we took some sand and larger flat stones to make walkways from the doors. This project took us a while but it was really rewarding to see the final product.  5/17/22 10 Hours